


I'd Cut My Strings For You

by AughtPunk



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: And were old friends, Ballet, F/M, I forgot I wrote this fic until this afternoon, Look Zenyatta has a Nutcracker Skin, Nutcracker, WHAT IF THEY KNEW EACH OTHER BEFORE, Widowmaker is a Ballerina, Zenyatta was a Dancer, and Widow, fite me, sorry Zenyatta, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AughtPunk/pseuds/AughtPunk
Summary: Zenyatta wasn't always a monk.Widowmaker wasn't always a sniper.Their paths have met on the battlefield, but what if they had crossed paths before?(Or: Zenyatta was a ballet dancer before he became a monk and you can pry that HC out of my cold dead hands)
Relationships: Does this ship even have a name, Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix/Tekhartha Zenyatta, Widowyatta?, Zenmaker?
Comments: 11
Kudos: 31





	I'd Cut My Strings For You

**Author's Note:**

> Originally created for a Zenyatta zine and then forgotten for six months. Whoops!

ZN-724188’s first recorded memory was of a single three-second conversation with  _ L'Opéra des Quatre-Vingt Lune _ ’s newest child ballerina. This was before it was allowed to create private audio or visual recordings, so all that remained of the brief encounter with the young girl was a single text document hidden deep within a language sub-folder. In the early days it would read the simple conversation over and over again in an attempt to understand what happened.

ÊTES-VOUS LE CORYPHÉE POUR LE CORPS DE BALLET?

[[TRANSLATION: You are the lead dancer for the chorus line?]]

REPLY -> OUI [[YES]]

BEIN! TU DANSES MIEUX QUE LE PREMIER DANSEUR

[[TRANSLATION: Good! You dance better than the male lead!]]

REPLY -> JE VOUS REMERCIE [[THANK YOU]]

ZN-724188 wasn’t sure if thank you had been the correct response for the human. It had a hard time reading humans in general, and preferred simple directions over anything else. This had been the first compliment it had ever received. Not only that, but one that implied it was superior to the Opera’s own Premier Danseur! Later— much later— ZN-724188 would reflect if this is what caused the spark of life within itself. Or did it simply fan the flames of a newborn soul?

After that,  _ L'Opéra des Quatre-Vingt Lune _ and all of its omnics changed hands to a new owner who was far more lax on recording restrictions. ZN-724188 quietly switched its memory recordings from transcripts to sound-only to see if the new owner would notice the decrease in its available storage. Most of the time ZN-724188 only recorded the orchestra's warm-ups, but every now and then it would keep snippets of conversations tucked away from prying eyes. The one memory ZN-724188 replayed the most was one with the prima ballerina’s teenage apprentice. 

“Bonjour, mon cher ami! Êtes-vous toujours la coryphaea?”

[[TRANSLATION: Hello my dear friend! Are you still the chorus line’s lead dancer?”]]

REPLY -> “Oui?” [[“Yes?”]]

“C’'est stupide! Tu devrais être un soliste!”

[[TRANSLATION: That’s stupid! You should be a solo dancer!”]]

REPLY -> “Merci?” [[“Thanks?”]]

It would take a number of years for ZN-724188 to make the final leap to video memories. Even then it only kept recordings that were related to the opera’s productions, just in case the owner ever noticed. Looking back there was little chance the owner even noticed ZN-724188’s miniscule act of rebellion in the light of the far more blatant rebellion from the other omnic dancers. One by one they left the theater, each following a path ZN-724188 did not understand. It could not understand. Not yet.

“Have you not felt the spark yet, my dearest friend?”

ZN-724188’s upgraded translators were able to sync up perfectly with the ballerina's question this time. She was a solois—the understudy for the prima ballerina—and would spend most of her days either shadowing the lead or standing in the wings, watching the performers from afar. On the night of this memory’s recording, the ballerina instead sat down next to ZN-724188 on it’s charging platform behind the stage. Somewhere deep within ZN-724188, it wanted to point out that she was getting dust on her tutu, but it could sense the woman’s mind was elsewhere.

The ballerina continued, taking ZN-724188’s silence in stride. “Do not worry. I am sure you will feel it one day. Just last week my boyfriend’s omnic maid left mid-cleaning without a word! Left everything half-mopped with suds everywhere! Good for her, I say! I’m sure she’s off living a far better life than washing the same empty apartment every week.”

There was something in the tone of the ballerina’s voice that made ZN-724188 pause. Maybe it was the downward turn of her lips, or how fragile her words fluttered in the air between them, or even the tinge of red on the rims of her eyes. Whatever it was, it made ZN-724188 decide to do something it never had before. 

He asked a question.

“Why is the apartment empty?”

The ballerina looked as taken aback by the question as ZN-724188 did for asking. Her words changed then, from fragile to sharp around the edges. They were a weapon, a well used one heavily stained from use. ZN-724188 wondered if all human voices were like this, and if so why hadn’t they noticed before? “My goodness, that’s the most you’ve ever said, I think. If you must know, it’s because my love is away, off saving the world like the hero he is.” 

“You wish to be with your love and not here, correct? Why remain if it only brings you sorrow?”

“He has a very dangerous but very important job. Not one for an ordinary dancer like me.”

“Why do you think of yourself as ordinary?”

The ballerina’s frown shifted from sorrow to confusion. “Do you only ask questions now?”

“Is asking questions wrong?”

“No, no I wouldn’t say so. Just a bit odd that they’re only about me. Do you...have any important questions?”

ZN-724188 thought about that. “Thousands.”

The flood of questions threatening to overtake ZN-724188’s processing was cut off by the stage manager rudely snapping at them for not getting ready for their entrance. Rudely. Had ZN-724188 always thought in adverbs? The ballerina was smiling sadly, the tuesday night audience yawned impatiently, ZN-724188 thought about the state of their programming inquisitively, he was overwhelmed by a world now colored with emotion. The stage manager angrily—there was another adverb—pointed at the pair of them to let them know that they were on.

ZN-724189 and ballerina alike danced across the stage in perfect harmony, as always. Perhaps, ZN-724188 reflected, that was why they kept him. It would be too much effort to train someone else to take his place, and they would risk someone not being as good as him. Or maybe they were afraid she wouldn’t dance as well without her old, dear friend.

The video recording of the memory always skipped then, right as it hit ZN-724188 that he was a he. 

He was himself.

He  _ existed _ . 

Not only did ZN-724188 exist but the ballerina did as well. She was a full, living, breathing being of happiness and sorrow held together by years of memories and an infinite number of possibilities. The angry stage manager, the sleepy audience, the overworked orchestra, each of them a link in a chain that reached back to the beginning of time. To think that all of history, that all of their histories converged together for this brief period of time before heading out into the unknown future was just overwhelming enough to cause ZN-724188 to lose his grip on the ballerina. 

The ballerina let out an undignified yelp and reached for ZN-724188’s hand.

ZN-724188’s hand missed.

ZN-724188’s glowing gold hand did not. 

That part of the memory never recorded right either. For years he would chalk up the image of a gold hand helping the ballerina steady herself to a simple malfunction. Many years would pass before ZN-724188 would put the pieces of that memory together. Until then, ZN-724188 regarded the image of him and the ballerina, hand-in-gold-hand, as a beautiful error. A convergence of two lives linked together in that moment under a spotlight.

***

The mission had not gone well. 

No, Zenyatta thought to himself, that wasn’t exactly true. The mission itself had gone just as planned. Overwatch had headed straight into danger with no thought of their own lives and saved the hostages without a single casualty. The correct phrase would be the mission had not gone well for  _ him _ . A well-aimed bullet had taken out his communicator, and a second bullet hit one of his coolant tubes. He had to shut down his floating capabilities simply to keep himself from overheating. Zenyatta was injured, cut off from the others, and leaking hot pink coolant that marked his footsteps into a nearby alley.

Zenyatta fell back against the alley’s brick wall and wondered, not for the first time, if he was going to die. That thought seemed to pop up a lot more often these days. Usually when his student was around. He shook the reasonable fear out of his head and instead focused on finding a way to plug his leak using what little he had on hand. Zenyatta was in the middle of debating sacrificing his dignity and pants for an emergency bandage when his visual sensors picked up a red light at the other end of the alley.

A red light. A red dot on his chest. A sniper.

“Cher Ami?”

A voice Zenyatta never thought he would hear again.

He had heard of Widowmaker, of course. He had seen grainy footage and heard all of the tales of the sniper that killed his brother. Zenyatta had even heard about who she once was, and the life she had lost. But it wasn’t until the sniper dropped into the alley that Zenyatta recalled Genji mentioning she used to be a ballerina, too.

“Amélie?” Zenyatta asked, already knowing the answer. 

Widowmaker kept her rifle aimed at Zenyatta’s chest as she walked closer, her footsteps falling on the pavement as light as ever. “I see you have found your spark, my dearest friend.”

Zenyatta clamped his hand over the leaking tube and stood up straight enough to face the sniper. Yes, now that she was closer there was no mistaking it. Her skin had been far less blue back at the opera, of course, but she still had those same sad eyes. “And your spark was torn away. Lost, but not gone forever.”

“You think there’s hope for me?”

“You think there isn’t?”

“Do you only ask questions now?”

Zenyatta couldn't help but chuckle. “Is asking questions wrong?”

With steady hands Widowmaker lowered her rifle and took another step towards Zenyatta. There was something else behind her eyes. Zenyatta wondered if anyone in Talon knew it was there. “Do you have nothing else to say? Don’t you hate me?”

“Why would I?”

Widowmaker—no, Amélie laughed. An empty laugh but a laugh nevertheless. She dropped her rifle and instead reached her empty hand out to Zenyatta. His own hand slipped naturally into hers as for the first time in years he let his old dance programming kick in. They must have been an odd sight to see, a bleeding omnic and a heartless sniper dancing as if nothing else mattered. Together they danced to the echoes of their past selves, and the melody of two lives converging once more. 

The present returned in the form of a shrill alarm going off in the back of Zenyatta’s mind, alerting him to the low level of coolant in his system. His fingers linked around Amélie’s as their dance finally reached its end. “You don’t have to search for your lost spark alone, Amélie.”

"You forgive me?"

"You think I haven't?"

“You would help me?” 

“Would you let me?”

“Don’t you have any important questions?”

“Thousands. And only you can answer them.”

Amélie smiled at him and Zenyatta honestly couldn’t tell if it was fake or genuine. The kiss she left on his cheek before retreating certainly felt real. Zenyatta filed the memory away with the others and, after a thought, created a new folder just for them. That way part of them could still dance together even if their future selves never would.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't heard, [I've been going through some hard times](https://aughtpunk.com/2019/11/24/in-which-i-am-very-bored-at-a-psych-ward/). Thank you everyone so much for your kudos and comments. They always help pick me up when things get dark. Really. Love you all.
> 
> If you enjoy my writing please check out my other fics or head to [my website](https://aughtpunk.com/want-to-help-out/) for information on my non-fic writing and how to help me out while I'm putting my life back together.
> 
> Be sure to tag me as @AughtPunk on [Twitter,](https://twitter.com/aughtpunk) [Tumblr,](http://aughtpunk.tumblr.com) or [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/AughtPunk) if you want to say hi, or ever make any fan content of my work. No need to ask permission, art and fic is always welcomed!


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